


have i known you twenty seconds or twenty years?

by screaminghalfpastmidnight



Category: One Tree Hill
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, haley's pov, only a teensy bit tho, taylor swift title because im a whore, they kinda deal with the s9 kidnapping fallout and talk about the past and the future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:07:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26171686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screaminghalfpastmidnight/pseuds/screaminghalfpastmidnight
Summary: In the end, you start to think about the beginning.ORNathan's missing and Haley's thinking about how it all started and then Nathan's back and Haley's thinking about where it ends, except with him by her side.//"When Nathan is officially missing and she has to tell her son that his dad may never come home again and watch her daughter walk for the first time without Nathan’s laugh beside her, eyes gleaming the same way they did when Jamie took his own first steps, Haley thinks of the beginning. It’s hard not to. She thinks of Lucas and what it was like when it was just the two of them against the world, neither of them having spoken two words to the other teenage Scott or the two girls who would become their best friends (or in Lucas’ case, future wife)."
Relationships: Haley James Scott/Nathan Scott
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	have i known you twenty seconds or twenty years?

**Author's Note:**

> ok so oth has been my favourite show since i was like. idk twelve or something but ive never written anything for it before because it's genuinely so perfect TO ME (i am well aware it has its issues - see JEYTONENDGAME2020) ANYWAYS
> 
> the only reason i believe in love is because of nathan and haley and i know that james only signed on for half a season in s9 but i just like to imagine what maybe wouldve been written if he'd been there for a teensy bit more so here's a canon-set scene from between e.12 and e.13 :)
> 
> title from "Lover" by Taylor Swift

_In the end, you start to think about the beginning._

When Nathan is officially missing and she has to tell her son that his dad may never come home again and watch her daughter walk for the first time without Nathan’s laugh beside her, eyes gleaming the same way they did when Jamie took his own first steps, Haley thinks of the beginning. It’s hard not to. She thinks of Lucas and what it was like when it was just the two of them against the world, neither of them having spoken two words to the other teenage Scott or the two girls who would become their best friends (or in Lucas’ case, future wife). She thinks of their first date - which really wasn’t a first date at the time but they both now consider that first tutoring session to be the start of it all. She twists the cracker jack bracelet around her wrist every time she thinks of him. She thinks about leaving it on the side table in their apartment when she left for tour and she remembers finding it in that little box in Nathan’s room that he’d held onto, even though his heart had been broken and he was sure he’d never let her in again. She remembers twisting it that same way in the carriage ride on their wedding day and then slipping it onto his wrist on their car ride to the airport before their special day had turned into a teen drama. She thinks of him crawling into bed with her and putting it back where it belongs and she remembers not long after, when she held it close to her heart, her other hand clutched in Brooke’s when she found out she was pregnant. 

She stopped wearing it in college, instead attaching it to her keys and playing with it when she was bored or anxious. She didn’t need it anymore; she had Nathan and her son glued to her side and they reminded her everyday of where they started; back in the early 2000s with her stuck in the middle of a life-long war created by one cruel father.

After Nathan’s accident, when his eyes become stoic and his drinking picks up, she keeps it on her beside table and stares at it, holding tightly to her son and praying that one day, he’d be who she’d always known him to be. 

He doesn’t go back to who he was before - not completely. But she doesn’t mind, because he becomes _better_ , and every time she looks at him, all she feels is pride. 

She thinks of their college years - late nights with Jamie, him distracting her while she tries to study, movie nights with Lucas after they’d put the boy to bed. She remembers overhearing the two brothers once, Nathan wondering aloud what their lives would be like if they’d grown up on these movie nights. Lucas, always so philosophical, declares that he wouldn’t change the way they are now. Haley silently agrees.

She thinks of the way she’d leaned on him when her father died; she remembers the way he stepped up when they’d stayed with her family for the week of the funeral. Her father’s death was unbelievably hard but anytime it got too much, she’d squeeze Nathan’s hand and watch as he conversed with her brothers like he’d always belonged there and swung his nieces and nephews around on his shoulders, giving them a small dose of happiness that broke through all the tension in the air that even the kids could feel. 

It wasn’t the same when her mother died.

She was awful to him and to Jamie. She was snappy and distant and pushed him as far away as she could because she was terrified she’d never feel the way she did before. If she thinks too hard about the way she treated him for those few months, she’s sure she could get herself to throw up. The one thing she thinks of the most is the look in his eyes when he’d pulled her out of the pool on the night she’d jumped in there just to _feel_. He was shaking more than she was and when he got her out, got her in dry clothes and tucked a hot water bottle into her side, he held onto her tight, mouth pressed into her cheek and asked her in the smallest voice to get help. And she did. 

Her pregnancy had come at the perfect time and soon, replacing the nights on the back steps where she’d stare at the sky and ask questions she knew she’d never get the answer to, were nights where her and Nathan would roll around in bed with giddy smiles on their faces, bouncing ideas off of each other for the life they were going to give their second baby. She could almost pretend they were eighteen again, in a cramped one-bedroom on a circle bed with his hands rubbing her belly, their mind on their son and their future. 

Their lives together has not been without tragedy. They’ve dealt with pain and fear and they’ve lost and almost lost the people they care about most. Their son was kidnapped once; their best friends left to travel the world because they could no longer deal with the pain of this town, Brooke had been attacked and lost her company and had her heart broken more times than any of them could count. They were no stranger to pain or fear or the waiting game, but Nathan had been gone two weeks and the waiting game seemed longer than it ever had before. Haley was smart; she knew the odds, but this was her _husband_ and she’d be damned if she lost him now.

When she does get him back, she doesn’t talk about it. Any of it.

His father just died saving his life and he was the one trapped in some dingy warehouse with a gun shoved in his face every five minutes and so she pushes it down, tries to be supportive. Over the years, their relationship has changed a lot, and so they don’t typically sleep tangled up together like they used to - Nathan’s got a bad back and after her second pregnancy, Haley tends to run hot instead of cold - but from the night he comes home, his face is buried in her neck and his hand holds hers every single time they go to bed. She lets him go on a camping trip with Jamie because she knows they need it, even though it takes everything she has not to lock him in their home and watch him with a beady eye. She thinks about him the entire time, almost worries herself sick and can barely come up with a speech for the burning boat so she pretty much wings it and when he calls her to ask how it went, she says ‘fine’ and leans her head against the back of the couch, just listening to him laugh at something Jamie said and breathes deep.

When he comes back, he’s a few hours early and surprises her at the label, lifting her up into his arms like he hasn’t seen her in months and she feels him sigh into her neck and she thinks that maybe he worries about her the same way she worries about him. When he sets her down, he plants a kiss on her lips and mumbles, “I missed you so much,” into them as she keeps locks her arms around his waist, peering up at him softly. 

“You’re early.” Is all she says.

“Yeah. The boy has four mosquito bites all on his left ankle and he was driving me nuts with the whining.” He grins and the corners of her own lips turn up involuntarily.

“But you had fun otherwise?”

He nods enthusiastically and she can’t help but think he looks _lighter_. “Yeah, we both did. I missed my girl though. Both of them, really. Where is Lydia?”

“Mouth and Millie have her for the day.” Haley hums, pulling him closer and leaning her cheek against his chest, chuckling when he says, “Does that mean I can have you for the day?”

They eat lunch on the boardwalk and visit Brooke and Julian and their godtwins and then Nathan falls asleep, head on her lap as they watch an old fifties film. Over dinner, she listens to Jamie chat all about their trip once he comes home from hanging out with Chuck and they all eat ice cream on the back porch before sending him to bed, Haley curling up with Nate on their outdoor sofa, a glass of wine and a beer bottle standing close together on the coffee table and her face tucked into his neck. He runs his fingers over her side in a rhythmic motion as they sit in silence, almost breathing completely in sync. After a while, he whispers, “Thank you for letting us go on that trip, baby. I know it was hard and I love you so _so_ much for that.”

She doesn’t say anything, just picks at the fabric of his shirt and smiles a tiny bit when he presses a kiss into her hair. After a moment, he speaks again. “You know, we haven’t really talked about it.” He pauses. “We don’t have to, but I want you to know I’m okay, You don’t have to hold back because you’re trying to protect me from it. I want you to say what you need to so you can heal, because this happened to you too, Hales.”

She bites the inside of her cheek, knowing that if he keeps talking like that she’s going to lose it. She lets go of his shirt and sighs deeply, shifting slightly to get closer to him. “Do you remember that one Christmas we had after we’d been separated, a few weeks before we lost Keith?”

He lets out a breathy laugh and she can literally _hear_ the smile on his face. “Yeah, of course. You slept over for all of Christmas break and on the day of, we made pancakes together and you danced around in the kitchen to that one Elvis song.”

She looks up at him now, smiling when she mumbles, “ _Blue Christmas_.”

“Yeah, that one.” He pecks her forehead and pulls her back in, humming. “Keith and Karen came over and kicked the two of us out of the kitchen when we almost ruined the potatoes, so we just took a nap and then Brooke jumped on us and left a bruise on my side. Then after we all had dinner, we sat by the fire and opened presents and you played _Santa Baby_ on your guitar.”

She nods into him, happy he remembers it just as happy as she does. “I remember lying in your mom’s living room that night with everyone there and thinking back to Junior year, when it was only me and Lucas. I had no idea that there would be a you or that Brooke would be my Brooke or that Peyton would be my Peyton. I laid there in your arms and I realized that I hadn’t actually known you that long, but it felt like it’d been twenty years and I remember wishing that everyday would be exactly like that day. And then, when you were gone, I thought I’d never get another one. And I thought that if loving you for a year felt like loving you for twenty, what would losing you feel like?”

He nods against her, tightening his grip on her side. “But you didn’t lose me. I wish I could say that you never will, but-”

“I know.” She says, shifting so that she’s sitting up, her arm around his neck now. “I know you told me after Keith died to make sure that if I ever did, I’d be okay without you, but that was before all this. Before our life and our kids and… _everything_. I’d like to think that I’d figure out eventually but… you were gone for three weeks, you weren’t dead and yet it was like I was a shell of a person. I didn’t feel like I was breathing until I saw you in that hospital.”

He nods, fixing the blanket to cover their feet. “On the day of the shooting when Brooke ran out and told Luke and I what was going on and I realized you were inside, it was like all coherent thought just went out of my head. All I could think about was you and if I’d ever see you again; what you were wearing the last time I saw you, if I’d told you I loved you or if I’d kissed you goodbye, or even what I’d made you for dinner the night before, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember any of it. I proposed to you again not long after that.”

“I remember. You said it gave you perspective.” She smiles and he grabs her hand, playing with her fingers.

“When we were sitting in the tutor centre and you were hanging onto me, all I could think about was the mistakes I’d made and the time we wasted. I promised myself that if we made it out of there, I’d drag you back home with me and never let you leave.” She laughs into him, smacking a kiss on his cheek.

“You sort of did, honey.” She says softly, her grin matching his.

“Exactly.” He mumbles into her hair before cupping her cheek so she looks at him. “We made it out of that and we made it out of this. All we have to do is keep going like we always have. The scary stuff always makes you think about what could’ve been, but right now I’m more focused on what could be. Like, next week we could be watching our son win a baseball game or we could be watching him lose it, but either way we’re gonna be there.”

She smiles, gazing at him in wonder as she brings a hand up to stroke his head. “You’re the love of my life, Nathan Scott.”

He smiles, letting out a breath and quietly says, “I love you too, baby.” before kissing her lips softly, thumb stroking the side of her cheek.

A few weeks later, for their anniversary dinner, when he makes her mac ‘n cheese and slides a new silver bracelet around her wrist, meant to replicate the plastic one she’d gotten all those years ago, she wonders how he knew but then rolls her eyes at herself. He somehow always gives her exactly what she needs exactly when she needs it and she thinks there’s gotta be a reason they’ve survived this long through so much tragedy. She thinks this new jewelry item is sort of symbolic of their love over time and how solid they’ve become.

The rest of her life is going to be lived with Nathan Scott. Lucas and Peyton will move back to Tree Hill and their first Christmas back will be just like the one they had their Senior year, except with more children running around and some new faces they’ve come to love. Nathan and Haley will dance around the cafe when no one’s around and they’ll watch their kids grow up and graduate and fall in love and James Lucas Scott will surpass his father’s all-time scoring number and Nathan will cry the second he does it. Lydia will grow up with Jude and Davis by her side and her favourite day of the year will be August 27th for no particular reason and she’ll be a cheerleader in high school; not because her mother was but because her Aunt Brooke was. They’ll spend their mornings at Karen’s Cafe and their nights at the rivercourt and their walls will be littered with blue Ravens jerseys and banners and it’ll continuously remind their parents of the good in this town. 

When it’s all over - when Lydia and Jamie have their own lives and families and everyone’s outgrown Tree Hill, Haley and Nathan will move to that creaky old house in Charlotte that they’d spent their seventh anniversary at and grow old together and the possibility of tragedy that looms over their heads will disappear because they’re Nathan and Haley, and somehow, that’s enough.

_can we always be this close?_

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Lover" by Taylor Swift
> 
> leave a comment if you liked it :)


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